What Are the Charges Agains R Kelly
(CNN)Before the federal trial for R. Kelly even began, it was shrouded in secrecy, with journalists and the public barred from the courtroom where prosecutors laid out their racketeering case against the singer -- charges that could send him to prison house for decades.
US District Gauge Ann Donnelly decided to keep media out of the courtroom less than a month before the August 18 starting time of the trial. Considering of the pandemic, she said, jurors needed to be seated in the courtroom gallery because of social distancing recommendations and that it would be "inappropriate" to seat members of the press with them.
Despite her concerns over the pandemic, she did non crave jurors to be vaccinated, something her colleague, US District Judge William Kuntz, did require for jurors at a trial he is overseeing that's also underway in the same courthouse. Judges are responsible for their own courtrooms and information technology is not uncommon for rules to differ from courtroom to courtroom.
Donnelly'due south conclusion created obstacles for journalists covering the trial. They couldn't see important pieces of evidence or watch how the jurors reacted to testimony, among other issues.
And journalists could not voice their concerns in real time since they were placed in a court two floors away from where Kelly's trial was taking identify.
Even during the trial of Mexican cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, held at the same courthouse in 2019, the jurors and their reactions could be seen by the public, including the press. Guzman was ultimately convicted on all ten federal criminal counts against him, including racketeering, and is spending the rest of his life in prison.
Roger Canaff, a former prosecutor who focused on cases involving sex corruption, said in his 25 years practicing he has never seen a jury completely blocked from the public's view.
"The right to a speedy and public trial is fundamental in the U.s. and the criminal justice process should not be shrouded," Canaff told CNN. "Even in high-profile and emotionally charged cases, it is unusual for a judge to forestall the jury from being seen at all."
Kelly was found guilty of nine charges including racketeering and sexual activity trafficking Monday. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and did not testify in his own defence force. CNN has reached out to Kelly'due south legal team for comment.
The jury
Kelly, his legal team and prosecutors filed into Donnelly'due south courtroom each day of the trial along with the jury. Just journalists and the public who wanted to watch the proceedings were funneled into two different courtrooms on a unlike floor.
The proceedings were barely visible on 2 apartment screens that featured security camera feeds showing a wide shot of the courtrooms. Witnesses' faces appeared to exist about the size of a quarter. It was hard to tell whether witnesses became emotional on the stand. Evidence appeared in a blackness box on the screen that was besides small to read.
The 12 jurors and six alternates briefly appeared at the bottom of the screens every bit they filed in and out of the courtroom. But they were cropped out of the view of the public, then their reactions to evidence or testimony couldn't be seen. That'due south something Bernarda Villalona, a criminal defense attorney who came to view Kelly'southward trial every bit a spectator, said was a mode to judge how jurors were feeling almost the example.
"I'm looking at facial expressions. Especially when there'due south vital witnesses, victims testifying," Villalona told CNN. "That is very telling as to us as to where they stand with this example."
Only for the jury
Journalists and the public could not heighten their objections with the judge every bit prosecutors began showing cardinal audio and video evidence to jurors wearing headphones.
The recordings, which Donnelly described in court as "somewhat upsetting," were shown to jurors on September xv. The public could not see jurors' reactions to them and did not know what they independent, bated from two recordings discussed in a September 14 filing from prosecutors.
According to the court filing, one video recording purportedly showed Kelly entering a room with ii women in it and accusing one of the women of lying. Prosecutors say he "tin then be heard beginning to physically assault the woman."
In some other recording, which prosecutors described equally an hourlong audio file, Kelly confronted an unnamed adult female for stealing a sentry and "berated, threatened and physically assaulted her." Prosecutors said he besides told the adult female people get "murdered" for doing what she did. These types of threats were central to the prosecutors' case that Kelly used compulsion to control his victims.
More than a dozen media organizations covering the trial banded together to ask Donnelly via letter for access to the recordings, which were not sealed. CNN was one of the news outlets that participated in the legal activity.
"Because the materials were non sealed when they were presented to the jury, the Printing Organizations now have an immediate correct to admission and to brand copies of the video and audio evidence," the letter states.
The letter said if the estimate didn't grant access to the recordings, then the media organizations wanted the opportunity to address the matter in court. The alphabetic character also asked the court to consider redacting any sensitive cloth to permit the public release of this evidence.
On September 21, Donnelly addressed the recordings in court, saying the media shouldn't be immune to see them, partly considering of their graphic nature.
"It is extremely graphic. It would be embarrassing is an understatement. Information technology would cause humiliation and create all kinds of other consequences (for the people in it)," Donnelly said in court.
Donnelly ruled that the media could listen to redacted versions of the audio from some of the recordings.
Shortly after this story published (and because of the media's letter to the court), prosecutors allowed journalists to listen to sound-only versions of some of the evidence.
The files included recordings of Kelly threatening women and evidence of the women filming humiliating acts, but many were indiscernible because they did non contain dialogue. Donnelly likewise allowed several members of the media, including CNN, into the courtroom for the first time since the start of the trial to watch the jury deliver the guilty verdict.
For weeks, witnesses testified about a civilization of threats and coercion while spending time with Kelly, and notwithstanding the public still hasn't had an opportunity to see evidence of these threats, something Villalona said was an important part of the justice arrangement.
"When you lot're talking nigh the criminal justice system, members of the public have to be a part of the trial -- they have to be able to see it. Transparency has to exist in society for there to be whatsoever trust in the criminal justice system," Villalona said.
Information technology wasn't until the government delivered its closing arguments final week that the public finally learned more most the content of the recordings. In one, assistant US Chaser Elizabeth Geddes said, a adult female was instructed to take off her clothes by Kelly, who told her, "Four licks (spankings)," confirming the woman's testimony in court.
"On the video you saw the accused spank (her) four times, and you saw the absolute anguish on (her) confront every bit he spanked her," Geddes said.
Some other video clip, Geddes said, showed a adult female being directed by Kelly to be "sexual and seductive with bodily fluids, feces, urine."
During her closing statement, Geddes told the jurors that she would not play the prune again considering they might "never fully erase that searing epitome" from their memories.
Correction: An paradigm explanation on a previous version of this story used the incorrect title for Nadia Shihata. She is an assistant United states of america attorney.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/26/us/r-kelly-trial-public-not-allowed-to-see/index.html
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